VaiṣṇavaVaishnava-Sahajiyā,Sahajiyamember of an esoteric Hindu cult movement centred in Bengal that sought religious experience through the world of the senses, specifically human sexual love. Sahaja (Sanskrit: “easy” or “natural”) as a system of worship was prevalent in the Tantric traditions common to both Hinduism and Buddhism in Bengal as early as the 8th–9th centuries. The divine romance of Krishna and Rādhā Radha was celebrated by the poets Jayadeva (12th century), CaṇḍīdāsCandidas, and Vidyāpati Vidyapati (mid-15th century), and parallels between human love and divine love were further explored by Caitanya, the 15th–16th-century mystic, and his followers. The VaiṣṇavaVaishnava-Sahajiyā cult Sahajiya movement developed from the 17th century onward as a synthesis of these various traditions.

The VaiṣṇavaVaishnava-Sahajiyās Sahajiyas elevated parakīyāparakiya-rati (literally, “the love of a man for a woman who legally belongs to another”) above svakīyāsvakiya-rati (conjugal love) as the more intense of the two. ParakīyāratiParakiya-rati, it was said, was felt without consideration for the conventions of society or for personal gain and thus was more analogous to divine love. Rādhā Radha is conceived as the ideal of the parakīyāparakiyawoman, and the VaiṣṇavaVaishnava-Sahajiyās Sahajiyas never attempted (as did some sects of Vaishnavism) to depict her as the wife of Krishna.

The VaiṣṇavaVaishnava-Sahajiyās Sahajiyas were looked upon with disfavour by other religious groups and operated in secrecy. In their literature they deliberately employed a highly enigmatic style. Because of the extreme privacy of the cultmovement, little is known about its prevalence or its practices today.